given a $500 fine, a record finally cleared.
For the Navy the cost included thousands of
dollars in hospital care, plus the loss of a pi
lot. For the Park Service there were the costs
of rangers, patrol cars, emergency aid, de
livering him to the hospital, arresting him,
and processing charges against him.
How much tax money goes directly for
people who jump with parachutes, fall
while climbing, break their ankles, get lost,
or fall into rivers or over waterfalls?
"Well, about $150,000 a year,"
Bill
Wendt says. "That's not counting salaries
for search-and-rescue teams. Just medical
expense, helicopter time, and replacing
equipment.
"Parachutists used to be legal," he told
me. "But they blew it. They jumped togeth
er, trying to join hands in flight. Or took off
from skateboards or pogo sticks. Or walked
over the edge on their hands. Free spirits are
fine, till they get dangerous or ridiculous."
Eves Tall Chief, an Osage Indian from
Oklahoma, is a free spirit. He lives to launch
his hang glider, still a legal activity, from
Glacier Point, perhaps the most spectacular
takeoff site in the country, then drift down
3,200 feet out of the heavens into the valley.
Several times I watched Tall Chief shout
out his war whoop as he charged off the cliff,
then floated back and forth past Yosemite's
ramparts and waterfalls. "It's the ultimate
thrill," he told me. "Fifteen minutes of eter
nity. Like being an eagle."
A professional in laser optics, Tall Chief
used to drive race cars. "But these wings
give you far better butterflies. The last few
seconds before you jump, your heart almost
stops. They're an eternity too."
There are those who believe that hang
Watch for falling rock! Such warnings mean it at Yosemite,
where granite domes exfoliate outer layers like an onion shedding
skin. With a sound like a rifle shot, this slab 18 feet across broke
loose high on Turtleback Dome and crashed onto the highway
(above) seconds before the photographerdrove up. Every spring
crews blast visible hazardsalong 250 miles ofpark highway.
In anotherassist to nature, the Park Service tries to undo
one ironic resultof a century of suppressingforestfires.
Duringthat time white fir and incense cedar have increased
in groves of pine and giant sequoias, interferingwith their
regeneration.Here in a program of prescribedburning (left),
a techniciancontrols a ground fire set to clearout this
understory and give sequoia seedlings a chance.